There is an increasing awareness of the requirement to protect children from inadvertently gaining access to pharmaceutical medications. However, this requirement is often balanced with the necessity to provide containers for medications that may otherwise may be readily and easily opened by an adult, i.e., any person having the cognitive ability to understand the instructions for opening a container requiring a certain manipulation and manual dexterity. Such persons are assumed, as well, to have the ability to understand that opening a container to gain access to the medication therein is a deliberate action, and is only undertaken when there is a necessity to attain access to the pharmaceutical medication contained therein.
Often, such adults have the sufficient manual dexterity to open a container, but may suffer from a debilitating condition such as arthritis. Such persons may still desire to have their medications in containers that require specific manipulation and manual dexterity, and thus child-resistance, but with lesser physical effort.
There are several well-known child-resistant containers in the market that are capable of dispensing one or a plurality of dosage forms such as tablets, gel-caps, capsules, or the like. They include the so-called “arrow-alignment” closures or the “push-and-turn” closures. In both cases, the containers are of the standard cylindrical variety.
The push-and-turn systems require that the closure be pushed axially downwardly and rotated at the same time. Disadvantageously, very considerable force, which is often beyond that which can easily be exerted by arthritic patients, may be required. Moreover, the specific force required between two otherwise identical, push-and-turn closures and containers, often differs from one to the other.
A user of closures having the arrow-alignment systems often needs to have relatively good eyesight in order to properly align an arrow on the closure or cap with an arrow typically embossed on the container. Even after the arrows are aligned, a user may still need to exert a very considerable force to push up the cap away from the container, so as to remove the cap, which also may be difficult for an arthritic patient.
Currently produced pharmaceutical containers tend to be cylindrical in shape and not very space efficient. These containers may not be easily stacked except in an end-to-end fashion, and even then only precariously. Moreover, placement of a number of cylindrical pharmaceutical containers together on a shelf results in an inefficient use of the volume in which they are placed due to the spaces left between the curved cylindrical walls. In order to improve storage efficiency, such containers are often packed in an outer rectangular paper packaging; however, the inclusion of such outer packaging is not only economically undesirable, but it also increases the production cycle time. Still further, it is also often difficult to read the label directions for pharmaceuticals contained in a cylindrical pill container due to the continual need to turn or rotate the cylindrical container.
Another disadvantage associated with closures suitable for cylindrical tablet containers is that the closure becomes physically separated from the container upon opening. The closure may then either become lost, or in the event where multiple medications are being dispensed, may inadvertently be secured incorrectly or loosely secured onto the wrong container. Still further, there is also a risk that children may place the separated cap into their mouth, which might result in choking.
One approach to overcoming such disadvantages is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,095,364, which discloses a unitary child-resistant closure having a rectangular base and a hinge connecting a moveable closure member to an end wall of the base. Such closures are suitable for use in rectangular containers. Disadvantageously, the hinge may break due to stresses associated with repetitive openings and closings. Also, this type of dosage form relies upon the use of only one finger for its operation, which still may cause difficulties for those suffering from arthritis.
Consumers of ingestible goods, such as nutraceutical or pharmaceutical medications also may wish to be assured in their own minds that the container of such goods has not been tampered with in the interval after the container left the manufacturing facility.
It would be desirable to have a child-resistant closure that is suitable for use in both cylindrical and non-cylindrical shaped containers, that is not easily removed from its container, and that may be opened by adults who may have compromised hand strength.